Academy Mental Capacity Act Competition

To mark tomorrow’s national day of action aimed at raising awareness of the Mental Capacity Act, the Academy is inviting essays from doctors in training on the way the Act is being implemented to benefit of patients.

Introduced in 2005 in England and Wales, the Act was designed to protect and support people who may lack the capacity to make decisions for themselves. This may relate to small decisions such as what to eat or wear, or major decisions, such as on financial or legal matters. The Act also defined who can and should make decisions on behalf of people who are defined as ‘lacking capacity’.

Many professionals, particularly those working in the area of mental health have argued that doctors and other professionals are not sufficiently aware of the details of the Act. The essay competition is designed to address that by calling on doctors to set out their experiences of the Act in practice. The competition is also open to multi-disciplinary teams, with the winners being announced by Baroness Ilora Finlay at a reception at the House of Lords in the early summer of 2016.

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